


Early Mornings & Mopey Eyed Stares

by ArghressivePirate



Category: Smallville
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-01
Updated: 2014-01-01
Packaged: 2018-01-07 00:32:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1113359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArghressivePirate/pseuds/ArghressivePirate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clark and Lex are arguing (go figure!), and Lois notices that there's something off about Clark. Once she gets to the root of the problem, she takes pity on him and and offers him relationship advice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Early Mornings & Mopey Eyed Stares

**Author's Note:**

> I was trying to drift off to sleep the other night when I was attacked by a little drabble bunny, since this isn't fleshed out enough for it to have been a plot bunny. Anyway, the urge to write this would not go away, so here it is- Lois's dialogue came to me first, and I sort of wrote this little ficlet around it.

It’s another early morning at the Planet, and Clark hurries in through the revolving door. He’s running late and instead of his usual routine of making small talk with his co-workers on his way to his desk, he shoots them apologetic glances before quickly ducking his head in shame. He may have racked up his fair share of tardies in high school, but he’s grown to value punctuality, at least in instances where he isn’t called away to play the hero.

Lois trains her eyes on him, her gaze narrowed in contemplation; something has already registered as not quite right. She watches as he stands behind his desk chair and tries to straighten some of the creases out of his rumpled suit, before seeming to decide that it’s a lost cause and plopping himself down in his chair. Once seated, he fixes a mopey eyed stare on the crystalline paperweight that’s sitting on his desk.

“Smallville,” she barks, her voice breaking him harshly out of his reverie. “Are you and Lex fighting again?” 

"No, of course not," says Clark because his default is still to lie his way out of uncomfortable conversations. "Where’d you get that idea?"

"Well," begins Lois, since tenacity is still her default. "First off, you look like someone killed your puppy, and last I checked, Shelby was very much alive." She cocks her head before continuing. "And secondly, this is the first time I’ve seen you wearing a rumpled suit since you’ve been married to Lex." She pauses. "You seemed to have suddenly grown a fashion sense since getting married, but I always assumed that was more Lex’s doing than yours." 

Clark flushes red because, yeah, Lois is right. Most mornings he finds his clothes sitting out for him. It’s not that he can’t dress himself, he maintains, but rather that it’d be ungrateful to refuse the help after Lex has already gone through the trouble of laying something out for him.

Once the embarrassment fades a little, Clark just stares at Lois, slack jawed. “You got marital discord out of a rumpled suit?” he asks.

"Yep, I’m better than Sherlock Holmes himself!" jokes Lois. "Now spill."

"So maybe we argued a little last night," he concedes.

"And the argument continued over into the morning, making you late?" asks Lois, as she tries to fill in the blanks.

"No," says Clark. "Lex had already left for work when I woke up. I’m late because I had a struggle with the iron this morning. My suit survived, the iron not so much. I picked up another one on the way to work." 

Lois can’t help but laugh at that, even thought she knows it’s insensitive. She composes herself quickly, though her mouth stays quirked up into a smile. “So you did dress yourself today,” she teases. “And suddenly the plaid tie makes sense.”

Clark frowns. “Was the whole point of this just to tease me, or are you going to offer some advice?”

"You fought against destiny to be with Lex. You decided that cave drawings were just cave drawings, and that prophecies were just a bunch of words strung together. Random. Meaningless." Here she pauses, letting her words sink in. "And maybe it was hard at first, but eventually you decided not to assign them meaning, not to give them weight. Now you need to fight just as hard to make things work, and sometimes that means choosing your battles."

Clark nods. That’s actually surprisingly good advice, better than the platitudes about standing his ground that Jonathon would have spouted off at him had he gone to him for advice, platitudes that would have sounded suspiciously like a NRA commercial.

"So, you’re thinking I should apologize?" he asks.

"You should definitely apologize," says Lois. "You’ve met your match in stubbornness with Lex, and you can’t both be right all the time."


End file.
